The SOMM Journal

June / July 2017

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96 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } JUNE/JULY 2017 { vineyard expressions } IN 2008, JUST AFTER MAVERICK winemaker Jayson Woodbridge (Hundred Acre) laid to rest his inaugural 2007 vintage of Pinot Noir from Napa's Stanly Ranch, he visited an art gallery in New York. There hanging on the wall was a simple yet vivid painting of a cherry pie, fresh out the oven and resting on a checkered table cloth. Artist TR Colleta's painting would become the label and part of the impetus for the name of Woodbridge's rich, high-toned, glossy, single-vineyard Pinot Noir—Cherry Pie. In my past experience working the floor as a somm at a steakhouse in Beverly Hills, I must have sold more Stanly Ranch Cherry Pie than any other Pinot Noir because of this unforgettable imagery, the catchy name and the immediately rewarding explosive style of this wine. The lip-smacking stuff sold itself—and when it wasn't selling itself, the somms could be sure that guests new to wine and looking for fruit-forward red suggestions would instantly fall in love. But there's more to this singing pie than the brooding "cherries" grown in Stanly Ranch, on the eastern Napa side of Carneros. There are other single-vineyard expres - sion of Cherry Pie as well: Carinalli, the soprano of the group, a bit higher in acid and a touch lighter ; and Rodgers Creek, the alto, offering rounded blue fruits. Then there's the biggest of them all, the baritone, Huckleberry Snodgrass, chocolatey, higher in tannin and the jammiest. But that's only scratching at the scratch n' sniff surface, which is why The Somm Journal humbly offers a rundown of these wildly successful single-vineyard Pinot Noirs for your enlightenment. This is the first of a two-part series exploration on the single vineyards of Cherry Pie. The Stanly Ranch vineyard on the eastern Napa side of Los Carneros. Any Way You Slice It AN EXPLORATION OF CHERRY PIE'S SINGLE-VINEYARD PINOT NOIRS by Jessie Birschbach PHOTO COURTESY OF HUNDRED ACRE WINE GROUP

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